Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:27:17.756Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neural correlates of attentional bias in addiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2013

Robert Hester  and
Maartje Luijten
Robert Hester*
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Maartje Luijten
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
*
*Address for correspondence: Robert Hester, PhD, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. (Email hesterr@unimelb.edu.au)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A small but growing neuroimaging literature has begun to examine the neural mechanisms underlying the difficulty that substance-use dependent (SUD) groups have with ignoring salient, drug-related stimuli. Drug-related attentional bias appears to implicate the countermanding forces of cognitive control and reward salience. Basic cognitive neuroscience research suggests that ignoring emotionally evocative stimuli in our environment requires both up-regulation of control networks and down-regulation of processing in emotion and reward regions. Research to date suggests that attentional biases for drug-related stimuli emerge from a failure to sufficiently increase control of attention over salient, but task-irrelevant stimuli. While SUD samples have typically shown increased activity in the cognitive control regions (ie, lateral prefrontal and dorsal anterior cingulate), during attentional bias such increases appear to have been insufficient for the concomitant increases in processing by the emotion/reward regions (ie, amygdala, insula, and striatum). Given the potential contribution of attentional biases to perpetuating drug use and the development of interventions (both pharmaceutical and cognitive-behavioral) to treat biases, understanding the neural basis of successfully reducing bias remains an important, but as yet unanswered, question for our field.

Keywords

Attentional biascognitive controlexecutive functionfMRIselective attention
Type
Review Articles
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , June 2014 , pp. 231 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Fellowship (FT110100088) (R.H.)

References

1.Field, M, Cox, WM. Attentional bias in addictive behaviors: a review of its development, causes, and consequences. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2008; 97(1–2): 1–20.Google Scholar
2.Field, M, Munafo, MR, Franken, IH. A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between attentional bias and subjective craving in substance abuse. Psychol Bull. 2009; 135(4): 589–607.Google Scholar
3.Franken, IH. Drug craving and addiction: integrating psychological and neuropsychopharmacological approaches. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2003; 27(4): 563–579.Google Scholar
4.Cox, WM, Hogan, LM, Kristian, MR, Race, JH. Alcohol attentional bias as a predictor of alcohol abusers’ treatment outcome. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2002; 68(3): 237–243.Google Scholar
5.Corbetta, M, Shulman, GL. Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2002; 3(3): 201–215.Google Scholar
6.Pessoa, L, Kastner, S, Ungerleider, LG. Neuroimaging studies of attention: from modulation of sensory processing to top-down control. J Neurosci. 2003; 23(10): 3990–3998.Google Scholar
7.Bradley, B, Field, M, Mogg, K, De Houwer, J. Attentional and evaluative biases for smoking cues in nicotine dependence: component processes of biases in visual orienting. Behav Pharmacol. 2004; 15(1): 29–36.Google Scholar
8.Munafo, M, Mogg, K, Roberts, S, Bradley, BP, Murphy, M. Selective processing of smoking-related cues in current smokers, ex-smokers and never-smokers on the modified Stroop task. J Psychopharmacol. 2003; 17(3): 310–316.Google Scholar
9.Robinson, TE, Berridge, KC. Addiction. Annu Rev Psychol. 2003; 54: 25–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10.Garavan, H, Pankeiwicz, J, Bloom, A, etal. Cue-induced cocaine craving: neuroanatomical specificity for drug users and drug stimuli. Am J Psychiatry. 2000; 157(11): 1789–1798.Google Scholar
11.Childress, AR, Mozley, PD, McElgin, W, etal. Limbic activation during cue-induced cocaine craving. Am J Psychiatry. 1999; 156(1): 11–18.Google Scholar
12.Franken, IH, Hendriks, VM, Stam, CJ, Van den Brink, W. A role for dopamine in the processing of drug cues in heroin dependent patients. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2004; 14(6): 503–508.Google Scholar
13.Grant, S, London, ED, Newlin, DB, etal. Activation of memory circuits during cue-elicited cocaine craving. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996; 93(21): 12040–12045.Google Scholar
14.Koob, GF, Volkow, ND. Neurocircuitry of addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2010; 35(1): 217–238.Google Scholar
15.Berridge, KC, Robinson, TE. What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? Brain Res Brain Res Rev. 1998; 28(3): 309–369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16.Pessoa, L, Ungerleider, LG. Neuroimaging studies of attention and the processing of emotion-laden stimuli. Prog Brain Res. 2004; 144: 171–182.Google Scholar
17.Miller, E, Cohen, JD. An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2001; 24: 167–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
18.Goldstein, RZ, Volkow, ND. Dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex in addiction: neuroimaging findings and clinical implications. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2011; 12(11): 652–669.Google Scholar
19.Kerns, JG. Anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex activity in an FMRI study of trial-to-trial adjustments on the Simon task. Neuroimage. 2006; 33(1): 399–405.Google Scholar
20.Egner, T, Hirsch, J. Cognitive control mechanisms resolve conflict through cortical amplification of task-relevant information. Nat Neurosci. 2005; 8(12): 1784–1790.Google Scholar
21.Etkin, A, Egner, T, Kalisch, R. Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011; 15(2): 85–93.Google Scholar
22.Goldstein, RZ, Alia-Klein, N, Tomasi, D, etal. Anterior cingulate cortex hypoactivations to an emotionally salient task in cocaine addiction. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009; 106(23): 9453–9458.Google Scholar
23.Goldstein, RZ, Alia-Klein, N, Tomasi, D, etal. Is decreased prefrontal cortical sensitivity to monetary reward associated with impaired motivation and self-control in cocaine addiction? Am J Psychiatry. 2007; 164(1): 43–51.Google Scholar
24.Goldstein, RZ, Woicik, PA, Maloney, T, etal. Oral methylphenidate normalizes cingulate activity in cocaine addiction during a salient cognitive task. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010; 107(38): 16667–16672.Google Scholar
25.Goldstein, RZ, Tomasi, D, Alike-Klein, N, etal. Dopaminergic response to drug words in cocaine addiction. J Neurosci. 2009; 29(18): 6001–6006.Google Scholar
26.Nestor, L, McCabe, E, Jones, J, Clancy, L, Garavan, H. Differences in “bottom-up” and “top-down” neural activity in current and former cigarette smokers: evidence for neural substrates which may promote nicotine abstinence through increased cognitive control. Neuroimage. 2011; 56(4): 2258–2275.Google Scholar
27.Marhe, R, Luijten, M, van de Wetering, BJ, Smits, M, Franken, IH. Individual differences in anterior cingulate activation associated with attentional bias predict cocaine use after treatment. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2013; 38(6): 1085–1093.Google Scholar
28.Hester, R, Garavan, H. Neural mechanisms underlying drug-related cue distraction in active cocaine users. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2009; 93(3): 270–277.Google Scholar
29.Ersche, KD, Bullmore, ET, Craig, KJ, etal. Influence of compulsivity of drug abuse on dopaminergic modulation of attentional bias in stimulant dependence. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010; 67(6): 632–644.Google Scholar
30.Vollstädt-Klein, S, Loeber, S, Richter, A, etal. Validating incentive salience with functional magnetic resonance imaging: association between mesolimbic cue reactivity and attentional bias in alcohol-dependent patients. Addict Biol. 2012; 17(4): 807–816.Google Scholar
31.Luijten, M, Veltman, DJ, van den Brink, W, etal. Neurobiological substrate of smoking-related attentional bias. Neuroimage. 2011; 54(3): 2374–2381.Google Scholar
32.Janes, AC, Pizzagalli, DA, Richardt, S, etal. Brain reactivity to smoking cues prior to smoking cessation predicts ability to maintain tobacco abstinence. Biol Psychiatry. 2010; 67(8): 722–729.Google Scholar
33.Janes, AC, Pizzagalli, DA, Richardt, S, etal. Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2010; 35(12): 2339–2345.Google Scholar
34.Luijten, M, Veltman, DJ, Hester, R, etal. Brain activation associated with attentional bias in smokers is modulated by a dopamine antagonist. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2012; 37(13): 2772–2779.Google Scholar
35.Janes, AC, Jensen, JE, Farmer, SL, etal. GABA levels in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex associated with difficulty ignoring smoking-related cues in tobacco-dependent volunteers. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2013; 38(6): 1113–1120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
36.Janes, AC, Pizzagalli, DA, Richardt, S, etal. Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2010; 35(12): 2339–2345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
37.Ersche, KD, Bullmore, ET, Craig, KJ, etal. Influence of compulsivity of drug abuse on dopaminergic modulation of attentional bias in stimulant dependence. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010; 67(6): 632–644.Google Scholar
38.Kober, H, Mende-Siedlecki, P, Kross, EF, etal. Prefrontal-striatal pathway underlies cognitive regulation of craving. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010; 107(33): 14811–14816.Google Scholar
39.Egner, T, Etkin, A, Gale, S, Hirsch, J. Dissociable neural systems resolve conflict from emotional versus nonemotional distracters. Cereb Cortex. 2008; 18(6): 1475–1484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
40.Stippekohl, B, Walter, B, Winkler, MH, etal. An early attentional bias to BEGIN-stimuli of the smoking ritual is accompanied with mesocorticolimbic deactivations in smokers. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2012; 222(4): 593–607.Google Scholar
41.Schoenmakers, TM, Bruin, MD, Lux, IF, etal. Clinical effectiveness of attentional bias modification training in abstinent alcoholic patients. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2010; 109(1–3): 30–36.Google Scholar
42.Hester, R, Dixon, V, Garavan, H. A consistent attentional bias for drug-related material in active cocaine users across word and picture versions of the emotional Stroop task. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2006; 81(3): 251–257.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
43.Bauer, D, Cox, WM. Alcohol-related words are distracting to both alcohol abusers and non-abusers in the Stroop colour-naming task. Addiction. 1998; 93(10): 1539–1542.Google Scholar
44.Goldstein, RZ, Tomasi, D, Rajaram, S, etal. Role of the anterior cingulate and medial orbitofrontal cortex in processing drug cues in cocaine addiction. Neuroscience. 2007; 144(4): 1153–1159.Google Scholar